Alfa Romeo Gloria Concept

The name ‘Gloria’ is a bit unfortunate as it puts you in mind of a middle-aged woman rather than a glorious Italian car, but at least the car that Alfa Romeo has created looks great. The BMW 5-Series sized machine has made its public bow at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show and now we have official images of the car in the sort of environment it’s been designed for.

The new car is the result of a collaboration between the Alfa Romeo Style Centre and the European Design Institute of Turin which features some interesting design cues including leather straps on the bonnet and bold air intakes either side of Alfa’s customary triangular grille.

The concept’s been designed to accept the twin-turbo V-6 or V-8 engine from the Maserati Quattroporte, so the students at the European Design Institute of Turin have helped to create a significant car. It measures 4700 mm long, 1920 mm wide, 1320 mm high and has a wheelbase of 2900 mm. The final design was picked from twenty proposals which were developed as 1:4 scale clay models.

As this is just a concept we’re assuming that it previews the new Alfa Romeo Giulia, which is scheduled for launch in 2015. Reports claim that the new Giulia is a major part of the firm’s plans to push their annual sales to 300,000 units by 2016, so Alfa will have been judging both public and press reactions to the concept when it was unveiled in Geneva. The Giulia will use the platform that’s being developed for the Maserati Ghibli. If it ends up looking like the Gloria concept it could easily take attention away from the Maserati.